Afterworld (The Orion Rezner Chronicles Book 1) (16 page)

W
e made a quick stop at Mushi’s and then my apartment, to grab our gear from the Crystal Lake mission. The Kevlar suits, guns, and weapons were loaners, but we had signed out on them and could therefore use the gear indefinitely. I would have to remember to get more battle gear made up for Dude soon. Though he would argue the point, his Superman costume wasn’t going to stop bullets. It wasn’t until nearly 10:00 a.m. that we arrived at BM headquarters.

We parked our scooters outside one of the garages and walked up to the guard behind the window, just inside the open doors.

“Mornin’, Boss,” I said loudly. People tend to respond to confidence. “Assigned to take out a Hummer on recon.” I handed him our papers.

He glanced at them and then back to me. I waited, trying not to shit my pants.

Finally, he glanced back down, nodded, and retrieved our keys. “Number seven.”

The walk across the hangar seemed like miles. I expected the guard to suddenly order us to halt, but no such command came. I took the wheel and Mushi rode shotgun. Dude eagerly scampered into the back and began jumping on the seat.

“Chill, Dude,” I told him. “We’re not out yet.”

We left the base without incident and drove through the city, to the northern gate. We approached the arched passageway and stopped next to the guard booth.

“The three of us are heading out on recon,” I said, handing him our papers.

He studied the documents for a moment and glanced around in the car. Dude waved like a kid heading to a theme park.

“What’s your destination?” he asked.

I stared at him and then laughed. “It’s right there on the paper—Crystal Lake, gotta do another once over.”

He looked back at the paper and squinted. His eyes moved across the sheet, reading words that weren’t there. Finally he nodded and radioed to the control tower.

“Good hunting,” he told us.

We thanked him and pulled forward. When the shield shimmered and disappeared, I wasted no time and gunned it. I hadn’t driven a car in a while, yet still instinctively turned on the radio. Endless hiss would be found on the dial, so I hit the CD button. The intro riff to AC/DC’s “Back in Black” began to play, and Dude started head banging as I cranked it up.

The chainsaw-like electric guitar from another time screamed from the armored Hummer as a dust cloud billowed in our wake. I have to admit, I felt cooler than a cucumber at that moment. Mushi mutilated the lyrics as Dude moshed in the back seat, rocking the devil horns like I’d taught him. I did my best Brian Johnson impression and tore the hell out of my throat. I hadn’t felt this alive in a long time. There’s nothing quite like the wind blowing through your hair at eighty miles an hour down a deserted freeway.

Mushi took a map out of the glove box and spread it out over the dash. It was one of those big, visitor-center deals with a million folds. By the time it was opened all the way, we were swimming in paper and arguing like an old married couple.

“All right, I found it,” he said finally.” Take exit thirty-two and then right onto Chilton Road.”

We had just passed exit seventeen north and still had a ways to go. Mushiro spent the time leafing through one of his spell books. I took the vial of insomnia potion out and tipped it back. I wasn’t tired, but I figured the extra boost wouldn’t hurt. The potion kicked in immediately and I suddenly felt more pumped up than a crazed sports fan who just received their favorite player’s sweaty jock in the mail. I cranked the CD player again.

“OK, I got really good at invisibility spells lately. I can only cast it on one of us though,” said Mushiro.

“Cast it on Dude. We can use the cam to scout the place first.”

Dude bobbed up and down in agreement. He leapt over the back seat into the cargo hold and began tossing gear about. Finally he emerged with a headset. Mushi reached back and turned it on as I powered up the dash-mounted monitor. The back of my head came into focus on the screen.

“Dude cam, check,” I said.

“What about a spell to keep him silent?” Mushi asked.

“Nah, he knows when to be ninja. It would be a waste. What about for us? Anything good against demons?”

“Tsuyoi Akuma Byoto.” The Japanese spell book he was using was rare. During the 1500s, the spell scribe had appeared in Japan, and Mushi had the only such spell book in Boston.

“I don’t speak Japanese, Mushi.”

“It means powerful demon ward.”

“Sweet.” I laughed—I was getting a little nervous. We had just passed exit thirty and were getting close.

I turned up the music to take my mind off the insanity of what we were doing. Tool’s epic baseline began, and soon “Aenema” was thumping through the speakers. The song was one that I had always loved and was eerily appropriate for the world in which we now lived. Tool had taken part of Bill Hicks’s comedy sketch “Arizona Bay” and turned it into a chillingly prophetic song for our times. My favorite part came up and I sang along.

“Some say a comet will fall from the sky. Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves. Followed by fault lines that cannot stand still. Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.”

In the end, the “Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of Freaks” had ended tragically. I can’t say that I missed celebrity-obsessed Wal-Martians who knew more about the lives of actors than the constitution of their own country, but I did mourn them—even sheeple deserve a chance. I always knew that it would take a total collapse for any real change to occur within the human psyche. I’m still waiting for the enlightenment.

I pulled off exit thirty-two and took the turn onto Chilton Road. Far ahead in the distance, we could see two pickup trucks, nose to nose in the middle of the road. I pulled off into a driveway and killed the engine, hoping we hadn’t been noticed.

“Think they saw us?” Mushi asked.

“We saw them—may as well assume so.”

He shook his head. “So much for stealth.”

“We’re what, a mile away from the prison, at least?”

“At least.”

I checked Dude in the rearview mirror. He gave me an exaggerated grin, still bobbing his head to silent music. “You up for it, Superchimp?”

“Born ready,” he signed.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“All right, Dude. You see that water tower in the distance? The prison is that way. Get in, look around, and get out. I don’t want you being a hero.”

He nodded and screeched. We got out with him, and I peeked around the overgrown hedge we had parked behind. Neither of the two pickups had moved. Luckily, the lookouts weren’t very good at their jobs. I turned back to Dude as Mushi secured his cam and recited an invisibility spell. He muttered the words in Japanese and the spell took effect immediately. Dude shimmered and became translucent—if he held still he was virtually invisible. When he moved, he looked like heat waves shimmering above blacktop.

“Now,
that’s
friggin’ cool,” I said.

Mushiro looked like he was going to puke and took a knee.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “You all right, Slick?”

He waved me away. “Listen, Dude, this spell is only going to last for a little while. Get to the prison fast and be careful.”

Dust leapt up from the ground rhythmically as the eager chimp jumped up and down.

I reached down and opened my arms and said, “Good luck, buddy.” He leapt into them and gave me a quick hug before jumping off again. The brush parted and we heard him scamper off into the woods.

“I’ll stay on lookout,” said Mushi. “Go watch the cam.”

I jumped in the Hummer and adjusted the monitor. The forest sped by as Dude ran full tilt. The camera soared up a fallen log and shot into the air. The view lurched to the sky momentarily as he grabbed a branch and swung high. He caught another branch and leapt to the ground. The first-hand view of Dude’s flight was exhilarating—no doubt, more so for him. As long as I had known him, he had always lived in the city. Though he loved the park, he rarely got to let loose like this.

Less than ten minutes later, a high chain-link fence came into view. Razor wire ran along the top in wide circular curves, like a tunnel of knives. In movies, people just toss a jacket over such wire and…Voila!—climb right over it. I’m pretty sure it’s not that simple in reality, but it mattered little since Dude was a chimpanzee.

I noticed on the monitor that a tree had fallen to lean against the eastern fence. Apparently, he saw it as well. Before I could say anything, he ran along the fence, shimmied up the tree, and climbed over the razor wire. It was a bit of a drop, but Dude took it in stride, hanging from one of the branches and then falling to land in a roll. The cam peeked up after a quick jostling.

He was inside.

The prison—like everything else in the world—hadn’t been maintained in seven years. I noted that there were three visible watchtowers, though none of them would see Dude as long as he was under Mushi’s spell. When we went in, we would have to take them out first—assuming anyone was in them. Dude scampered across the overgrown yard, parting the tall grass as he went.

“Easy now, Dude. You’re invisible, but if there are guards in those towers, they’ll see the grass move.”

He didn’t respond—he knew better. The camera slowed, however. I knew at least he’d heard me.

“You’re doing great, buddy,” I said.

He made it to the side of the building and climbed up the southern wall, easy enough. He stopped on top of the roof, panning the camera from one side to the other. One of the circulation vents had been busted off the side of the air filtration system, likely by raccoons. They are determined little beasts…with thumbs.

I was about to tell Dude, but again, he already had the same idea. Quickly, he crept across the roof and disappeared into the ventilation shaft. There was a small screech and the sound of nails against metal, followed by a loud bang as he fell a few feet to the duct below. He clicked on his headset light and slowly crept along, barely making a sound. I told myself the guards probably wouldn’t give much heed if they’d heard him fall—the prison was in such bad shape it would likely be home to wild animals.

Though Dude could handle his own, I knew he must be nervous—but if he was, he didn’t show it. He was a professional.

Eventually the duct came to the first of many vents, and Dude peered into a darkened room. The only light came from a small window, high on one of the walls. It looked to be a storage room, and I told him to move on to the next in line.

This one was an office.

“See if you can open it,” I said.

I couldn’t see his arms, but the grate flew out of its place and crashed on the floor—much louder than I liked. I told him to hold, thinking that surely someone heard the racket, but no one came.

“You clear, Dude?”

He answered me by creeping out and falling to the floor. Clicking off his lamp, he smartly took up the grate and stashed it under the lone desk in the room, and then moved to the door, opening it gingerly. The camera peeked out into an open hallway lined with doors. He continued on and, at the end of the hall, stopped and peeked around the corner…nothing. He made his way to the end of this one as well, and came to a wall made almost entirely of glass. He slipped through the door into what looked like a lounge. After five minutes in the maze of offices and hallways, he came to a cellblock.

“Take the high road,” I said in the headset.

He began to climb up the front of the cells.

The large, open cellblock was three stories high, with catwalks around and across the upper levels. I studied the monitor closely as he climbed, and though the only light came in through windows up high, it was enough to see the bodies lying on the floor of the cells. They were seven years decomposed and mostly skeletal.

“You’re doing great, bro,” I assured him. “You’re all right—remember, no one can see you.”

A cry caught my ear, and Dude perked to attention. A soft moan echoed up through the cellblock. He moved to the railing and dropped back down a level. He looked around, searching for the source of the sound. He crept across the center cat walk, and as he neared the other side, I could make out several small figures huddled in the darkness. Seeing them as well, he stopped.

“Closer,” I whispered. My heart pounded in my chest as he crept forward.

Dude moved to the first cell and peered through the bars. At least ten Cain children were inside. They looked like they hadn’t eaten regularly. I scoured the blood-stained faces for my sister but didn’t recognize her.

“Go to the next one.”

He went down the entire line of cells. Each one held between five and ten children, though they were only made to house two inmates. All in all, there were at least two hundred.

“We got company, Rez!” said Johnny.

“You’re on your own for a minute, Dude. Mushi’s calling.”

The camera moved up and down, letting me know he understood.

I exited the Hummer and looked for Mushiro, who wasn’t near the road as I’d expected. I found him on the other side of the truck, facing the woods.